5. mars 2008

It's good to McWork for the evil empire The Great Place to Work Institute interviews workers around the world, and has just completed a survey of 30,000 employees in 81 Norwegian businesses, and landed on a quite surprising conclusion. The surprise is not really that the Oslo Airport Express Train came in as #1 for big (above 250 employees) businesses. But I bet a lot of people hadn't expected to find the McDonald's fast food chain as number four. McDonald's didn't make the top 100 in the corresponding US survey, topped by Google. In Norway, medium sized companies (50-250 employees) were dominated by the IT industry. Best place to work? Microsoft (yes, it is just a medium-sized employer in Norway) for the third year in a row. The software giant only made #86 in the US. Link via Norwegian daily Dagbladet. 9:37:19 PM    comment []  trackback []

'The truth about EU election observers' Mark Guthrie has been an EU election observer a number of times, including in Venezuela, and the account about his experiences doesn't really inspire confidence in the system. One anecdote: By dusk we’re safely installed in the final polling station to monitor the count. The machine begins spurting out bits of paper, while the polling staff begin totting up the number of signatures in the register where electors have to sign before they vote. I start looking at the various numbers and realise there’s a problem – there are 20 more votes in the machines than voters’ signatures. It might not sound a lot but with a total of 500 voters, this is a significant margin of error. The polling official tries several times using different excuses to explain it away, but none adds up. A little later, as I’m taking some time out in the corridor, my mobile phone rings and a voice I don’t recognise warns me to stop interfering in things that do not concern me. The mystery is never solved. Chavez is well ahead but the incident leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It’s gone 10.30 when we drive away, with fireworks and horns sounding Chavez’s victory. To nobody's surprise, he also tells there is a heavy left-wing tilt among election observers. I don't think it's appropriate for election monitors to buy promotional material for one of the candidates (guess which!). 8:55:16 PM    comment []  trackback []

Winter flu explained US scientists have found out why the flu virus thrives in the cold season. They found the viruses coat themselves in fatty material that hardens to a gel, protecting them in the cold. This coating melts in the higher temperatures of the respiratory tract, allowing the virus to infect cells. The US National Institutes of Health team hope their study, which features in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, could lead to new treatments. [...] The hard rubbery coating around the virus which forms in colder temperatures gives it the protection it needs to pass from person to person. The coating is so robust it can even resist to certain detergents. However, once inside a host the virus can only infect a target cell once the coating has melted. I had a very uncomfortable encounter with these critters last month, so I am hard pressed to admire their clever mechanism. 8:50:51 PM    comment []  trackback []

Clinton wins Ohio and Texas - McCain wins GOP nomination Hillary Clinton wins Texas and Ohio: Sen. Hillary Clinton got her campaign back on track with projected wins in the Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island primaries. Delegate-rich Texas and Ohio were considered must-wins for her campaign. Obama had won 12 straight contests since Super Tuesday on February 5. Obama won in Vermont. Texas also held Democratic caucuses Tuesday, but it was too close to declare a winner. "For everyone here in Ohio and across America who's been ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up -- this one is for you," Clinton said before supporters in Columbus. "You know what they say," she said. "As Ohio goes, so goes the nation. Well, this nation's coming back and so is this campaign." Obama, while congratulating his opponent, pointed out that the delegate count between them remains pretty much unchanged after this contest. Obama is still very likely to win the pledged candidate count. But this is still showing a weakness in his campain, and Obamania appears to be passing. On the Republican side, John McCain is now the official presidential candidate: Sen. John McCain of Arizona claimed the GOP nomination Tuesday after rolling up one-sided victories in primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont. "I am very pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a sense of great responsibility that I will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States," the 71-year-old McCain told cheering supporters in Dallas. Huckabee has bowed out of the race, and whatever else you may think of the man's politics, he has some style. "We started this effort with very little recognition and virtually no resources," Huckabee told supporters. "We ended with slightly more recognition and very few resources." The crowd laughed. "But what a journey," he said. "What a journey. A journey of a lifetime." Huckabee rarely raised a negative word during the campaign about McCain, a man he clearly likes, and he called him Tuesday night to congratulate him. Huckabee said he extended "my commitment to him and to the party to do everything possible to unite our party, but more importantly to unite our country." Not likely to happen in this campaign! 7:32:42 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2008 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.04.2008; 21:17:28.